This week, I joined 300 Compass real estate professionals and employees for the third-ever Southern California Luxury Summit at the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach.

The event came together beautifully, with ample opportunities to network at the opening and closing cocktail parties, collaborate and share across panels, keynotes, and special presentations, and experience one of our country’s greatest luxury destinations, Orange County.

And if you’re reading this and on the fence about attending an upcoming regional event or Compass REtreat (Happening October 27–29, 2026, in New Orleans, Louisiana), I highly encourage you to go.

The greatest value of these gatherings isn’t always found in the keynote. Sometimes it’s the conversation you have walking between sessions, the person you sit next to at dinner, or the idea someone shares that completely changes the way you approach your business.

I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with luxury power players Chris Clements, Jen Winston, Ryan Jancula, Clare O’Connor, and Sam O’Connor to talk about leveraging lifestyle to build a luxury business.

Chris Clements spoke about living the life of his luxury clientele.

That means more than knowing where his clients go. It’s grabbing coffee at the local shop. Spending time at the yacht club. Understanding the places, people, and experiences that shape the community he serves.

The goal isn’t simply to know where luxury clients spend their time. It’s to understand the world they live in well enough to help them access it for themselves.

Jen Winston spoke about connection.

Her luxury business is deeply intertwined with her community, from her children’s school to her social circles to the way she shows up every day.

There’s an important distinction here. Building relationships isn’t about forcing your way into a community. It’s about genuinely showing up.

Luxury clients don’t necessarily need another person trying to sell them something. They want people who understand them, their lives, and what matters to them.

Ryan Jancula reminded us of something deceptively simple: we all have the same 24 hours in a day.

For his luxury clients, time is one of the most valuable things he can give back.

He doesn’t accomplish that by rushing through the process. He has built an operation that runs efficiently and consistently, allowing him to deliver an exceptional experience again and again while protecting his own time and, perhaps more importantly, his clients’ time.

That is luxury.

Not just doing more. Creating more space for what matters.

Sam and Clare O’Connor challenged us to think outside the box, but never outside of high standards.

They shared examples of uniquely elevated touchpoints that can define an experience in ways clients remember, including having homes energetically cleansed on behalf of their clients.

It may not be something every client expects. That’s precisely the point.

The best luxury experiences aren’t always the most expensive ones. They’re the ones that demonstrate you were paying attention.

After nine years in real estate and countless conversations with thousands of professionals, clients, and leaders across our industry, I’ve come to believe that we sometimes overcomplicate the idea of luxury.

When we hear “luxury,” we tend to imagine a different stratosphere.

And in some ways, that’s true. The price points may be higher. The expectations may be higher. The resources available to the client may be greater.

But the people living those lives are still right here on the ground, living their lives human to human.

They laugh when something is funny. They care about where their children will make their childhood memories. They want to feel understood. They value their time. They care about energy. They want community. And ultimately, they want the same thing most of us want: a home that feels like a sanctuary.

That’s the part of luxury I think we can sometimes lose sight of.

Sure we have to learn the market. Understand the neighborhoods. Know the private clubs, trusted advisors, designers, architects, schools, and experiences that matter to high net worth individuals. Understand the importance of access, discretion, privacy, and anticipating a need before it’s ever expressed. Be prepared to meet extraordinary standards.

But, serving luxury clients doesn’t mean simply putting them on a pedestal. It means understanding the extraordinary lives they lead while never losing sight of the human being living it.

The best luxury professionals I’ve encountered aren’t performing luxury.

They’re living with an extraordinary level of awareness.

They notice the details. They listen closely. They understand that time is valuable. They know that access matters. They create experiences instead of transactions.

And most importantly, they remember that behind every extraordinary home is a person with an ordinary human desire: to feel at home.

That’s why gatherings like the Southern California Luxury Summit and Compass REtreat matter.

You don’t attend simply to collect ideas. You attend to expand your perspective.

You meet people who challenge the way you think. You hear how someone else has solved a problem you’ve been wrestling with. You discover a standard you didn’t know existed. And sometimes, you leave with one idea that fundamentally changes the way you serve your clients.

The luxury business is constantly evolving.

The fundamentals of being human aren’t.

And I think the professionals who understand both will always have an advantage.